argenteuil basin with a single sailboat

Le Bassin d'Argenteuil

From December 1871 until 1878, Monet lived in Argenteuil. He would set up his easel out in the countryside or in his garden. But above all it was the Seine and the movement of the small boats which attracted the painter's attention. In his paintings, with their light and vivid colours, Monet shows his perfect mastery of the technique of fragmenting brush strokes, producing an interplay of luminous vibration. The left of the painting is taken up by the Argenteuil promenade, punctuated by the shadows of the trees planted along it. In the background there is a road bridge with a tollbooth at each end. On the right, in the foreground, there is the jetty of a bathing pool, then a washhouse. A major part of the painting is given over to clouds moving across the blue sky. As Daniel Wildenstein pointed out, Monet took several liberties with the motif. He only painted five arches on the bridge, which in reality had seven, and he raised the height of the tollbooths. The activity in Bassin d'Argenteuil recalls the beach scenes of Saint Adresse or those of the Grenouillère baths at Bougival before 1870. But here we have a particularly accomplished work, a brilliant starting point for a fruitful series, as Impressionism reached its peak during the Argenteuil period.

Object details

History - provenance, exhibitions, about this object record.

• collection Ernest Duez, Paris
• jusqu'en 1901, dans la collection Decap, Paris
• 1901, Vente Tableaux modernes... collection de M.X [Decap], Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 15 avril 1901, n°14
• de 1901 à 1911, dans la collection du comte Isaac de Camondo, Paris (acquis pour la somme de 16 500F à la Vente de Drouot du 15 avril)
• 1911, accepté par l'Etat à titre de legs du comte Isaac de Camondo pour le musée du Louvre (comité du 27/04/1911, conseil du 08/05/1911, arrêté du 23/11/1911)
• 1911, attribué au musée du Louvre, Paris
• de 1911 à 1947, au musée du Louvre, Paris (exposé à partir de 1914)
• de 1947 à 1986, au musée du Louvre, galerie du Jeu de Paume, Paris
• 1986, affecté au musée d'Orsay, Paris
• Deuxième exposition impressionniste - galerie Durand-Ruel - France, Paris, 1876
• Exposition du centenaire Monet-Rodin - musée de l'Orangerie - France, Paris, 1940
• Le paysage français de Poussin aux Impressionnistes - organisme inconnu - France, inconnu, 1956, ?, n°28 ?
• Loisirs sur l'eau - histoire de la plaisance en France 1640-1940 - palais de Chaillot - France, Paris, 1978, n°704
• Hommage à Claude Monet - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais - France, Paris, 1980
• Impressionnisme - fondation Anne et Albert Prouvost - France, Marcq-en-Baroeul, 1980-1981
• L'Impressionnisme et le paysage français - Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Etats-Unis, Los Angeles, 1984
• A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape - The Art Institute of Chicago - Etats-Unis, Chicago, 1984-1985, n°44
• L'Impressionnisme et le paysage français - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais - France, Paris, 1985
• Budapest, 1869-1914 : modernité hongroise et peinture européenne - musée des Beaux-Arts - France, Dijon, 1995, n°174, p. 329
• Impressionists on the Seine. A celebration of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party - The Phillips Collection - 1996-1997
• Impressionism: Paintings collected by European Museums - High Museum of Art - Etats-Unis, Atlanta, 1999, n°31
• Impressionism: Paintings collected by European Museums - Seattle Art Museum - Etats-Unis, Seattle, 1999, n°31
• Impressionism: Paintings collected by European Museums - Denver Art Museum - Etats-Unis, Denver, 1999, n°31
• The Impressionists at Argenteuil - National Gallery of Art - Etats-Unis, Washington, 2000, n°11, p. 69
• The Impressionists at Argenteuil - Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art - Etats-Unis, Hartford, 2000, n°11, p. 69
• Monet, i luoghi della pittura - Casa dei Carraresi - Italie, Trévise, 2001-2002
• Orte des Impressionismus Gemälde und Fotografien - Kunstmuseum Basel - Suisse, Bâle, 2003, n°19, p. 57
• Monet la Senna le ninfee. Il grande fiume e il nuovo secolo - Museo della città - Italie, Brescia, 2004-2005
• Temps d'harmonie : paradis d'artistes au XIXe siècle - City museum - Japon, Kobe, 2006
• Temps d'harmonie : paradis d'artistes au XIXe siècle - Metropolitan Art Museum - Japon, Tokyo, 2007
• De Millet à Bonnard. La création picturale dans les collections du musée d'Orsay (1848-1914) - Hangaram Art Museum - Corée, République de, Séoul, 2007
• L'impressionnisme au fil de la Seine - musée des Impressionnismes Giverny - France, Giverny, 2010
• Claude Monet 1840-1926 - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais - France, Paris, 2010-2011
• Impressionists on the Water - Legion of Honor - Etats-Unis, San Francisco, 2013
• Naissance de l'impressionnisme - National Art Center - Japon, Tokyo, 2014
• Monet. Un pont vers la modernité - musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada - Canada, Ottawa, 2015-2016
• Monet: The Early Years - Kimbell Art Museum - Etats-Unis, Fort Worth, 2016-2017
• Monet: The Early Years - Legion of Honor - Etats-Unis, San Francisco, 2017
• Impressionnisme : quelle modernité ? - Louvre Abu Dhabi - Emirats Arabes Unis, Abu Dhabi, 2022-2023
• Alexandre, Arsène, Les Arts , "Collection du comte Isaac de Camondo", Paris, [s.n.], 1908, p.32
• Anonyme, Catalogue de la collection Isaac de Camondo - Musée du Louvre , Paris, G. Braun, 1914, n°181, p. 35
• Jamot, Paul, La Collection Camondo au Musée du Louvre, les peintures et les dessins , Paris, La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1914, p.14, 42-44, ill. p.43
• Vitry, Paul ; Dreyfus, Carle ; Leprieur, Paul ; Migeon, Gaston, Catalogue de la collection Isaac de Camondo - Musée national du Louvre , Paris, Musées nationaux, 1922, n°181, p.39, non reprod.
• Brière, Gaston, Musée national du Louvre. Catalogue des peintures exposées dans les galeries. I. École française , Paris, Musées nationaux ; Palais du Louvre, 1924, n°CA. 181, p.189
• Regamey, Raymond, Gazette des beaux-arts , "Formation de Claude Monet", Paris, [s.n.], 1927, p. 82
• Léger, Charles, Claude Monet , Paris, G. Crès, 1930, n°7
• Reuterswärd, Oscar, Monet , Stockholm, A. Bonniers, 1948, p.282
• Bazin, Germain ; Adhémar, Hélène ; Sérullaz, Maurice, Catalogue des peintures, pastels, sculptures impressionnistes , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1958, n°248, p.131-132, non reprod.
• Anonyme, Catalogue des peintures du musée du Louvre , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1972, p. 272
• Adhémar, Hélène ; Dayez, Anne, Musée du Louvre, Musée du Jeu de Paume , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1973, p. 66, 151
• Adhémar, Hélène ; Dayez-Distel, Anne, Musée du Jeu de Paume - Catalogue rédigé , Paris, Editions des musées nationaux, 1977, p.157, reprod. p.68
• Bellony-Rewald, Alice, Le Monde retrouvé des impressionnistes , Paris, Seghers, 1977, p. 120-122
• Adhémar, Hélène [sous la direction de], Chronologie impressionniste : 1863-1905 , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1981, n°125
• Rossi Bortolatto, Luigina ; Bailly-Herzberg, Janine, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Monet. 1870-1899 , Paris, Flammarion, 1981, n°70, p.93, reprod. p.92 et pl.XXI
• House, John, Monet. Nature into art , New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986, n°143
• Patin, Sylvie, A la campagne , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1986, n°53
• Rosenblum, Robert, Les Peintures du Musée d'Orsay , Paris, Nathan, 1989, p. 276
• Tucker, Paul Hayes, Monet in the 90's. The seires paintings , Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts, 1989, fig. 4, p. 10
• Cachin, Françoise, Chefs-d'oeuvre du musée d'Orsay , New York, Artabras, 1994, n°80
• Shimada, Norio, La Seine des impressionnistes , Tokyo, Shogakukan, 1996, p. 97
• Cutting, James E., Impressionism and its canon , Lanham, University Press of America, 2006, p. 50
• Font-Réaulx, Dominique de, Turner i gli impressionisti : la grande storia del paesaggio moderno in Europa , 'Il paesaggio fotografato in Francia, 1845-1870" : [mostra, Brescia, 28 ottobre 2006-25 marzo 2007], Trévise, Linea d'ombra libri, 2006, p. 250
• Anonyme, Elger Esser, Eigenzeit , [Ausstellung, Stuttgart, Kunstmuseum, 28. November 2009 bis 11. April 2010, Arnhem, Museum voor moderne kunst, 11. Juli bis 26. September 2010], Munich, Schirmer ; Mosel, 2009, n°7, p.17, 148
• Ingres à Picasso : portraits et figures de femmes, cat. exp. (Paris, La Renaissance, 1928) , Paris, [s.n.], 1928
• Exposition du centenaire MONET-RODIN : au profit de l'entr'aide des artistes, cat. exp. (Paris, musée de l'Orangerie, 1940) , Paris, [s.n.], 1940, n° 9, p. 4 (non reprod.)
• Durand-Ruel, Charles, Impressionnisme, cat. exp. (Marcq-en-Baroeul, fondation Anne et Albert Prouvost, du 18/10/1980 au 25/01/1981) , Marcq-en-Baroeul, La Fondation, 1980, n° 18
• Brettell, Richard ; Gache-Patin, Sylvie ; Schaefer, Scott, L'Impressionnisme et le paysage français, cat.exp. (Los Angeles country museum of art, du 28/06/1984 au16/09/1984 ; Chicago, the Art institute of Chicago, du 23/10/1984 au 06/01/1985 ; Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, du 04/02/1985 au 22/04/1985) , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1985, n° 44
• Rathbone, Eliza E. ; Rothkopf, Katherine ; Brettell, Richard R., Impresionists on the Seine : a Celebration of Renoir’s Luncheon of the Baoating Party, cat. exp. (Washington, The Phillips Collection, 1996-1997) , Washington, Counterpoint, 1996, n° 17
• Goldin, Marco ; Murphy, Alexandra ; Stuckey, Charles F., Monet : i luoghi della pittura, cat. exp. (Trévise, Casa dei Carraresi, du 29/09/2001 au 10/02/2002) , Conegliano, Linea d'ombra Libri, 2001, n° 10, p. 88
• Goldin, Marco (dir.), Monet. La Senna. Le Ninfee. Il grande fiume e il nuovo secolo, cat. exp. (Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia, 23 octobre 2004-20 mars 2005) , Conegliano, Linea d'ombra libri, 2004, n° 58
• Mathieu, Caroline ; Takahashi, Akiya ; Ono, Yoshiki, Collections du musée d'Orsay. Paradis d'artistes au XIXème siècle, cat.exp. (Kobé, Tokyo) , Tokyo, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 2006, n° 21, p. 53
• Mathieu, Caroline ; Georgel, Chantal ; Lobstein, Dominique ; [et.al], De Millet à Bonnard : la création picturale dans les collections du Musée d'Orsay (1848-1914), cat.exp. (Séoul, 2007) , Paris, Musée d'Orsay, 2007, p. 40
• Patin, Sylvie ; Patry, Sylvie ; Roquebert, Anne ; Thomson, Richard, Monet, cat.exp. (Paris, Galeries nationales, Grand Palais, Paris, du 22 septembre 2010 au 24 janvier 2011) , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux ; Musée d'Orsay, 2010, n° 30, p. 131 (reprod.)
• Sterling, Charles ; Adhémar, Hélène, Musée du Louvre. Peintures... [Catalogue sommaire illustré] École française, XIXe siècle. vol. III , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1960, n°1371
• Wildenstein, Daniel, Claude Monet : catalogue raisonné Claude Monet. 1, 1840-1881, peintures , Paris, Bibliothèque des Arts ; Wildenstein institute, 1974, n°225
• Compin, Isabelle ; Roquebert, Anne, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du Musée du Louvre et du Musée d'Orsay , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1986, vol.4, p.102
• Compin, Isabelle [coordination] ; Lacambre, Geneviève [coordination] ; Roquebert, Anne, Musée d'Orsay. Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1990, vol.2, p.329

Do you have a question where you have additional knowledge about this work? You can write to us to suggest improvements to the file.

Other artworks from artist

Claude Monet, Saule pleureur

Claude Monet, Coin d'atelier

Claude Monet, Cour de ferme en Normandie

Claude Monet, Madame Louis Joachim Gaudibert

Claude Monet, Femmes au jardin

Claude Monet, Méditation. Madame Monet au canapé

Claude Monet, La Charrette. Route sous la neige à Honfleur

Claude Monet, La Pie

Claude Monet

Description.

Claude Monet ( French , 1840-1926)

The Basin at Argenteuil (Le Bassin d'Argenteuil)

• Oil on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Signature / inscription / marks.

Signature: Signed LL:Claude Monet

Credit / Object Number

Gift of Mrs. Murray S. Danforth

Object Number

Purchased from the artist for 80 francs by Comte Jean de Rasty, possibly under the title Esquisse, Argenteuil; purchased from de Rasty by Alexandre Rosenberg for 3,500 francs, Paris, 1898; Lazare Weiller, Paris; Hotel Drouot, Paris, sale L. Weiller, November 29, 1901, no. 32; Bernheim-Jeune, Paris; Gaston Bernheim de Villiers, Paris, 1919; M. Knoedler, New York, 1928; Carroll Carstairs Gallery, New York, 1936; Mrs. Murray S. Danforth, Providence, 1938. Note: This provenance is published in Rosenfeld, RISD Museum, 1991.

Projects & Publications

Publications.

A Handbook of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

European Paintings and Sculpture, ca. 1770 - 1937

Exchange Exhibition, Exhibition Exchange: From the Collection of Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; From the Collection of The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

Selected Works

Exhibition history.

The boat basin at Argenteuil, with its long promenade and terraced café, was a popular site for watching sailing regattas on the Seine. Monet set up his easel on an island across the river, distinguishing optical effects and textures with strategically varied brushmarks. Using pigments direct from tubes and mixed on his palette, he evoked the bramble of grasses in the foreground with congested jabs of color. Horizontal dashes capture the water and the reflections of broadly painted sailboats, and tiny dark and light flicks mark a procession of plane trees.

The boat basin at Argenteuil, with its long promenade and terraced café, was a popular site for watching sailing regattas on the Seine. Monet set up his easel on an island across the river, distinguishing optical effects and textures with strategically varied brushmarks. Using pigments direct from tubes and mixed on his palette, he evoked the bramble of grasses in the foreground with congested jabs of color. A dappled mosaic of horizontal dashes captures the movement of water and the reflections of broadly painted sailboats. Along the riverwalk, dark and light flicks of paint mark a procession of plane trees whose gray-green leaves and their purple shadows are rendered with a flattened touch.

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Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat

Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat ( French : Bassin d'Argenteuil avec un seul voilier ) is an oil on canvas autumn scene of the basin at Argenteuil , painted by French Impressionist artist Claude Monet in 1874. [1]

National Gallery of Ireland

Vandalism and restoration, external links.

The piece was created during Monet's residence at Argenteuil, a town on the banks of the Seine , on the outskirts of Paris . Here Monet purchased a boat to be used as a floating studio and painted many scenes of the surrounding area. [1]

The painting was purchased by Irish playwright and activist Edward Martyn in 1899, on the advice of his cousin, George Moore . It was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1924. [2] It is valued at €10m. [3]

At around 11am on 29 June 2012 a visitor to the gallery, Andrew Shannon, punched the painting causing "huge damage, shocking damage" [4] with "an extensive three-branched tear". [5]

After 18 months of restoration work, on 1 July 2014, the painting was re-hung in the gallery, behind protective glass. [3] The restoration saw 7% of the damaged area being lost, in a process that involved sewing microscopic threads back together. [4]

Shannon was jailed for 5 years for the attack. [6]

• List of paintings by Claude Monet

Related Research Articles

Oscar-Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant , exhibited in 1874 initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon.

Gustave Caillebotte was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was known for his early interest in photography as an art form.

Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air . He deviated into figure painting only rarely and, unlike Renoir and Pissarro, he found that Impressionism fulfilled his artistic needs.

The Gare Saint-Lazare , officially Paris Saint Lazare , is one of the seven large mainline railway station terminals in Paris, France. It was the first train station built in Paris, opening in 1837. It mostly serves train services to western suburbs, as well as intercity services toward Normandy using the Paris–Le Havre railway. Saint-Lazare is the third busiest station in France, after the Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon. It handles 290,000 passengers each day. The current station building opened in 1889 and was designed by architect Juste Lisch; the maître d'œuvre was Eugène Flachat.

Events from the year 1874 in art .

Camille-Léonie Doncieux was the first wife of French painter Claude Monet, with whom she had two sons. She was the subject of a number of paintings by Monet, as well as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Édouard Manet.

The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1999 American romantic heist film directed by John McTiernan, written by Leslie Dixon and Kurt Wimmer and is a remake of the 1968 film of the same name. Its story follows Thomas Crown, a billionaire who steals a painting from an art gallery and is pursued by an insurance investigator with the two falling in love. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, and Denis Leary.

Saint-Georges majeur au crépuscule refers to an Impressionist painting by Claude Monet, which exists in more than one version. It forms part of a series of views of the monastery-island of San Giorgio Maggiore. This series is in turn part of a larger series of views of Venice which Monet began in 1908 during his only visit there.

A Girl with a Watering Can is an 1876 Impressionist oil painting on canvas by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The work was apparently painted in Claude Monet's famous garden at Argenteuil, and may portray one of the girls in Renoir's neighborhood in a blue dress holding a watering can.

Snow at Argenteuil is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the Impressionist artist Claude Monet. It is the largest of no fewer than eighteen works Monet painted of his home commune of Argenteuil while it was under a blanket of snow during the winter of 1874–1875. This painting—number 352 in Wildenstein's catalogue of the works of Monet—is the largest of the eighteen. The attention to detail evident in the smaller paintings is less evident in this larger picture. Instead, Monet has rendered large areas of the canvas in closely like tones and colours of blue and grey. The application of smaller strokes of greens, yellows, reds and darker blues breaks up these large expanses, and the almost choreographed dispersal of these various colours helps bind the picture together. Paint at the depicted road surface is thicker than elsewhere in the painting, and impasto is suggestive of the feel of disturbed snow.

Argenteuil is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It can also refer to:

Vandalism of art is intentional damage of an artwork. The object, usually exhibited in public, becomes damaged as a result of the act, and remains in place right after the act. This may distinguish it from art destruction and iconoclasm, where it may be wholly destroyed and removed, and art theft, or looting.

Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil is an oil painting by an unknown artist. The painting is a landscape depicting the River Seine at Argenteuil in France. It is owned by Englishman David Joel.

Springtime or The Reader is an 1872 painting by the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet. It depicts his first wife, Camille Doncieux, seated reading beneath a canopy of lilacs. The painting is presently held by the Walters Art Museum.

Black on Maroon is a mixed media painting by Mark Rothko, created in 1958. It is housed at the Tate Modern, in London.

The Fondation Claude Monet is a nonprofit organisation that runs and preserves the house and gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny, France, where Monet lived and painted for 43 years. Monet was inspired by his gardens, and spent years transforming them, planting thousands of flowers. He believed that it was important to surround himself with nature and paint outdoors. He created many paintings of his house and gardens, especially of water lilies in the pond, the Japanese bridge, and a weeping willow tree.

Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son , sometimes known as The Stroll is an oil-on-canvas painting by Claude Monet from 1875. The Impressionist work depicts his wife Camille Monet and their son Jean Monet in the period from 1871 to 1877 while they were living in Argenteuil, capturing a moment on a stroll on a windy summer's day.

Jean Monet was the eldest son of French Impressionist artist Claude Monet and Camille Doncieux Monet and the brother of Michel Monet. He was the subject of several paintings by his father and married his step-sister, Blanche Hoschedé.

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The Train in the Snow , or Le train dans la neige , is a landscape painting by the French Impressionist artist Claude Monet. The work depicts a train surrounded by snow at the Argenteuil station in France. Art historians see the work as a significant example of Monet's efforts to integrate nature and industry in his work. Many historians believe that Monet, out of all of the notable nineteenth century artists, made the most paintings of trains in his lifetime.

• ↑ "eMuseum" . National Gallery of Ireland. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015 . Retrieved 18 January 2015 .
• 1 2 "Restored Monet returned to National Gallery" . RTÉ . 1 July 2014 . Retrieved 18 January 2015 .
• 1 2 "Vandalised Monet work restored" . Belfast Telegraph . 1 July 2014 . Retrieved 18 January 2015 .
• ↑ "The Claude Monet Research & Conservation Project" . National Gallery of Ireland . Retrieved 18 January 2015 .
• ↑ Wheaton, Oliver (6 December 2014). "Man is jailed for punching a hole through an £8 million Monet painting" . Metro . Retrieved 18 January 2015 .
• , National Gallery of Ireland information
• , National Gallery of Ireland restoration process

Family Audio Tour: Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat

Can you find  Claude Monet (1840– 1926), Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat , 1874 , in this room?

Listen to the audio

Continue on the tour.

• The next painting is a colourful still life by an artist called Picasso .
• You'll find it in Room 5, which is the room closest to the door you came in.
• Or, you can  take another look at all the audio tracks  and choose one you'd like to listen to next.

Ah, here’s a place I love. There’s no better job in the world than looking after paintings but on a sunny day, I’d give anything to be outside, enjoying the sun by a lovely river.

[swishing of water]

This artist loved the sun and water too. His name was Claude Monet, and he spent his entire life finding ways to paint sunlight. 

So how did he do it?

Well, you don’t really see light itself; you see its effect on the world around you – so Monet painted the way light changed the landscape in front of him – the colours in particular, like the deep blue water here and the bright orange trees – I guess it must be autumn.

Blue and orange: I’ve learned about those two colours. They’re called complementary – or opposite – colours, and when you put them together, they clash and make each other look brighter. 

Exactly, and that’s why this picture looks so bright! Monet was one of a group of artists called the Impressionists, and what they wanted to do was paint nature just as they saw it. They wanted to capture their first impression of things, so they took their paints and brushes out of doors and painted in the open air.

Even in rain?

Even in snow!

And even on a river! Monet must have painted this picture on the water because there’s water left, right and centre.

Well spotted! Monet had a small boat that he turned into an art studio so that he could paint on the river. 

And is that why those brushstrokes are so big and obvious? It’s like he painted them quickly before the boat moved. 

Íde [laughing]:

That’s his technique. Monet painted fast to get the colours right before the light changed.

I want to go painting outside now!

And you, if you could go painting outside, where would you go and what would you paint? Tell whoever you’re with.

Continue your journey

Family Audio Tour: Still Life with a Mandolin

Family Audio Tour: George Bernard Shaw

Millennium Wing foyer, Level -1

Family Audio Tour: The Liffey Swim

Family Audio Tour: Decoration

Discover more.

National Gallery at Home: Create your own Monet-inspired drawing and collage!

Video: Create a mixed-media landscape picture.

Drawing Inspiration: Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

A colourful pastel drawing of performers.

Colouring in the Collection

Download and colour in this painting by Pierre Bonnard

National Gallery of Ireland at Home: Sensory Spots

Use food to create your own paint and a spotty masterpiece.

Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat

Pont Boieldieu in Rouen, Rainy Weather

Mnemosyne (Rossetti)

Creation of the World (Raphael)

The Allegory of Love (Veronese)

Columbus Breaking the Egg

Low Marks Again

Allegory of Virtue and Vice (Veronese)

The Accordionist

Crab on its Back

The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (Titian)

Wing of a European Roller

Panthéon de la Guerre

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I

Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary

Homme au bain

Descent from Mount Sinai (Sistine Chapel)

The Forge (Goya)

The Union of Earth and Water

August Blue

Paintings attributed to Caravaggio

Virgin and Child (van der Weyden)

Crib and Rosa

The Hiroshima Panels

Conversion of Paul (Bruegel)

How to put Monet back together again: restoration after vandalism

Tiny paint flakes from damaged work give clues to artist’s technique.

Conservators at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin have had an unusual opportunity to examine samples of the paint Monet used and to discover new details of the artist’s technique after a landscape by the French Impressionist was damaged by a visitor in 2012.

The conservation and restoration of Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, 1874—work sponsored by the French bank BNP Paribas—have revealed that Monet’s priming was a pinkish-grey, which makes the paint colours appear brighter than if they had been applied over a plain white primer. This means that Monet needed to mix less white into the paint to achieve a bright tone, enabling him to use pure colours straight from the tube. Although he often made initial charcoal sketches on the priming, no traces were found of a preparatory drawing in the work.

Major damage

The painting was damaged in June 2012, when a visitor approached the work and appeared to lunge towards the canvas. His body hit the picture just to the left of its centre, resulting in three L-shaped tears; the longest was around 25cm.

Andrew Shannon, aged 48, of Dublin, was charged with criminal damage. At his trial last December, he pleaded not guilty, saying that he had accidentally fallen against the painting while feeling ill. The jury failed to reach a verdict. A retrial is due to begin next month.

Simone Mancini, the head conservator at the gallery, describes the tears as the result of an “incredibly violent impact”. Shortly after the incident, tiny fragments of paint were painstakingly collected, many from the gallery’s floor. Around 100 fragments were eventually recovered. Seven were so small that they could not be reattached. These were set into resin, so that the layer structure of Monet’s paint could be examined using a microscope and chemical testing.

Conservators at the gallery quickly contacted their colleagues at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where a painting by Monet was vandalised in 2007. Coincidentally, this work was another Argenteuil riverscape, also painted in 1874. The Argenteuil Bridge was punched by an intruder who broke into the museum at night.

The Dublin gallery then began work on repairing its painting. The surface was covered with protective tissue and the tacks were removed, releasing the canvas from its wooden stretcher. Then came the delicate task of repairing the tears. Using a microscope, the edges were painstakingly aligned on the reverse, thread by thread. The broken canvas fibres were joined with a strong but reversible bond.

Taking no risks

The painting was then placed face up, and the protective tissue was removed so that work could begin on the surface. Although Monet left the painting unvarnished, a glossy synthetic varnish was applied in the 20th century and this had greyed. The work would have looked better with the varnish removed, but because of the sensitivity of the pigments, particularly the bright reds and yellows, this process would have been risky. Instead, the painting was given a surface clean, which still makes the colours appear brighter and lighter, closer to those of Monet’s time.

The canvas needed further support because the tears were so extensive, so the painting had to be relined, with a reversible secondary canvas added to the back of the original.

Most of the 100 paint fragments, mainly measuring between 0.1mm and 0.3mm, were replaced on the canvas in their original sites. Remaining losses along the tears were filled with gesso and retouched with reversible watercolour paint.

The painting was then glazed and put into a climate box. The work had been on a list of the gallery’s most important works that were due to be glazed, but this had not yet been done at the time of the incident. The painting is now back on display. Further research is being conducted into the paint samples and what they reveal about the artist’s materials.

The work was bequeathed to the gallery in 1924 by the playwright Edward Martyn, who bought it in Paris in 1885. It was only the second work by Monet to come to the British Isles.

Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'How to put Monet back together again'

The American Friends of the National Gallery of Ireland, founded in 2016, raises funds for and awareness of the collections, educational activities, exhibitions, and projects of The National Gallery of Ireland.

Since 1864, the National Gallery has collected, studied, and displayed the finest of Irish and European art. Following a massive renovation of its historic galleries, the Gallery now displays its magnificent collection in a modernized building. The national collection includes Ireland's favorite painting, Frederic William Burton's Hellelil and Hildebrand , The Meeting on the Turret Stairs , as well as works by Caravaggio, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, and many more. The Gallery also hosts tours, talks, workshops, and film screenings to help bring art to life for each new generation.

Support from the American Friends fosters and encourages the study, appreciation, and preservation of fine arts in Ireland and abroad, including the acquisition and restoration of works of art and the construction and rehabilitation of galleries or other buildings related to the display and preservation of works of art at the National Gallery.

Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat

Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat is an oil on canvas autumn scene of the basin at Argenteuil , painted by French Impressionist artist Claude Monet in 1874. [1]

• 2.1 Vandalism and restoration
• 3 References
• 4 External links

The piece was created during Monet's residence at Argenteuil, a town on the banks of the Seine , on the outskirts of Paris . Here Monet purchased a boat to be used as a floating studio and painted many scenes of the surrounding area. [1]

National Gallery of Ireland

The painting was purchased by Irish playwright and activist Edward Martyn in 1899, on the advice of his cousin, George Moore . It was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1924. [2] It is valued at €10m. [3]

Vandalism and restoration

At around 11am on 29 June 2012 a visitor to the gallery, Andrew Shannon, punched the painting causing "huge damage, shocking damage" [4] with "an extensive three-branched tear". [5]

After 18 months of restoration work, on 1 July 2014, the painting was re-hung in the gallery, behind protective glass. [3] The restoration saw 7% of the damaged area being lost, in a process that involved sewing microscopic threads back together. [4]

Shannon was jailed for 5 years for the attack. [6]

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External links

• [1] , National Gallery of Ireland information
• [2] , National Gallery of Ireland restoration process

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Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat (Q19570879)

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